Three-time champion Rafael Nadal will face former Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic in a testing first-round match at the BNP Paribas Open.
Monday’s draw for the year’s first ATP Masters 1000 of the year threw up an interesting challenge for the Spaniard, who reached the final in 2022 during his last visit to the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.
Nadal leads Raonic 8-2 in their Lexus ATP Head2Head Series, but the Canadian won their lone meeting in the desert: a 4-6, 7-6(10), 7-5 classic in 2015.
Nadal will be making just his second appearance of the year, following a quarter-final run to the ATP 250 in Brisbane in the first week of the season.
Raonic, a former No. 3 in the PIF ATP Rankings, has been competitive in his two outings this year but has been let down by his 33-year-old body. At his last start, he pushed Jannik Sinner to a first-set tie-break in the Rotterdam quarter-finals before retiring. At the Australian Open he split sets with Alex de Minaur before retiring early in the third.
And that doesn’t include Niemann’s four top-five finishes in four starts between the DP World Tour and the Asian Tour, including his win at the Australian Open, which helped him earn an invitation to The Masters.
American players like Amanda Anisimova, McCartney Kessler, and Ashlyn Krueger also receive Indian Wells wildcards.
